An Old Face Chapter 1
by Crimson Dawnbreak
Summary: it starts out a normal Pancake Day for Soul and Maka. then a relation of Maka's crashes through the window, and brings a world of hurt along with him. a lot better than it sounds. read it if you want.


The day went fine until the window got put out of decommission. Pity.

It was Pancake Day, too.

The day started normally, or at least what seemed to Maka and Soul as normal. Maka started making breakfast to the sounds of Soul suffocating underneath Blair's chest. _Stupid cat,_ thought Maka. Nevertheless, she resisted the urge to reach for the nearest encyclopedia. She needn't punish Soul for their flirtatious house pet. "Soul, Breakfast!" she called over her shoulder. Soul entered the dining/living room, half awake, mumbling about kicking the cat through his window. "Now Now, Soul," Maka chided him. "We can't kick Blair through the window, then we'd have to pay all the rent." Her tone shifted. "Much as I'd like to." She set a plate of pancakes down in front of her sleepy weapon, wondering what doctor Stein would have them dissect today.

Then the window exploded.

A body flew through the formerly closed portal and smashed into the kitchen counter. As the body was getting up, Maka realized two things: one, the person was not Black*Star coming to carry out one of his death threats to her for defeating Asura on her own (she didn't even defeat the kishin on her own, silly Black*Star,) and two: the person looked strangely familiar. He stood up, a long black trench coat swishing around his ankles. He wore a black dress shirt and black jeans, wore his long dark hair in a ponytail, and wore some strange silver dog tags in the shape of Shinigami's head around his neck. He straightened out, shook his head a little to clear it, then ran to the window and started shouting at someone down in the street. "What the hell, Arnold! I told you to only use a goddamn lock pick! And you use explosives?!" Soul reacted quickly, in spite of his apparent sleepiness. He glanced at Maka, gesturing silently that he should transform while the intruder's back was turned. But Maka didn't want to pull a scythe on this guy. He seemed…familiar, somehow. And there was something about his stance that suggested you didn't want to pick a fight with him. But Maka had a test in mind. Silently she reached for a huge, double-thick dictionary on one of the wall shelves. While the guy was ranting out the window, she moved toward him and started to bring the dictionary back for a devastating Maka-chop, when the guy spun around, and Maka got her first good look at his face. She caught her breath. He looked almost like papa, except for the eyes…they were bright green, and seemed to almost glow from within. Maka had a sneaking suspicion, and she was proved right when she saw that the guy's forearm had sprouted a jagged black scythe blade.

Soul was having a confusing morning. First it was the damn cat with her bed antics, and now Maka, who had been about to kill this guy, was just standing there staring at his face. And the guy wasn't much better. Sure, they looked pretty similar, but for all he knew this guy was a kishin who could shape shift. But Maka would have sensed his soul was a kishin soul, if he was. He took a closer look at the guys face, then Maka's. He checked again. Yes! He was right. The guy had Maka's brow, and his eyes were almost the same. And they were almost the same height, as well. The guy looked dangerous, but he was nearly as scrawny as Maka. No doubt about, it they were related, though how? This guy could've been her brother, but she never mentioned a brother. Maybe a cousin. Soul started. Maka was saying something. "B-but I thought you were killed in the raid!" she was almost hysterical now. "Well, I escaped," he said sadly. "Don't worry, that was almost eight years ago now." He brightened a little. "But hey, guess what I get to do for work now?" Maka suddenly grinned. Soul felt like an intruder in this uber-bizarre family reunion. "You wouldn't happen to murder kishins for Shinigami-sama, would you?" Soul drawled from across the room, just to remind everyone he still existed. "Why, no, I sell ice-cream to all the little children," the new guy drawled right back. "Now, Maka, when am I gonna get introduced to this real charmer of a boyfriend you've got here?" Maka blushed slightly, and then reasserted her position as woman of the house by pounding her long-lost relation over the skull with her dictionary. She gave Soul just long enough for a short bout of laughter that someone else had gotten the book for once, then Maka sent her dictionary hurtling across the table directly into Soul's face. Meanwhile, coat guy had just regained consciousness. "Ow," he complained. "We don't see each other for nearly ten years and you say hello by depressing my skull?" probably because of repeated exposure to Maka-chops, Soul recovered fast. "How about that introduction now?" he asked weakly, and Maka couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance that her weapon was so under-awed by her book combat skills. Nonetheless she complied. "Toby, this is Soul Evans. My boyfriend. And Soul, this is Tobias Albarn, my cousin."

The semi-tearful reunion was cut short when a started shouting down in the street. "Hey, Toby! Can I come in now?" just listening to that simple sentence told Soul that the owner of the voice was probably really annoying, and would likely challenge him to a duel if he felt Soul was getting more attention than he was. "So, Toby," Maka said, "It seems you've brought friends." Tobias winced. "Well, you could say tha…wait, when did you start to sound so much like a housewife?!" he turned to Soul. "Does she use that tone with you?" when Soul shook his head, Tobias seemed exasperated. "Great, it's the 'Tobias tone' again." He was cut off when the same voice from before started speaking again. "You know what? Screw you, Toby. I'll just climb the wall." Maka interrupted. "Why did you bother using the window anyway?" Tobias laid back. "Oh, the front door was locked." Soul smirked. Real chip off the old Albarn block, that one. Minus the pervertedness. Soul's reverie was interrupted when a teenager climbed through the window. He was wearing a brown leather aviator jacket, jeans, a Linkin Park t-shirt, and flight goggles pushed up on his forehead. He tumbled through the window, and Maka noticed that he had a bright orange dragon tattoo on his forearm, and his eyes were the same color. He smiled, and Maka got he feeling he wasn't to be trusted around fire or shaving cream. He got up off the floor. "Ooh, pancakes!" Tobias sighed. "Well, Maka, Soul, this is Arnold. He's the pilot." Maka noticed out the corner of her eye that a fog bank was moving in. Tobias was busy scolding Arnold. "What are you doing? I told you to wait in the shuttle with Jack and Skylar." Arnold answered in a tone that Maka guessed he'd designed especially to annoy Tobias. "Oh, you know what it gets like in their with those two. What with Skylar always reading her romance novels, and Jack just fiddling with all the electronics and stuff. Boring." Maka glanced out of the window, and started. The fog was so thick now that it was almost as dark as night in the little apartment. She glanced around, and saw that Soul had noticed it too. He was paler than normal, and at first Maka couldn't tell why. Then she heard the noise he must have picked up while it was still too faint for her to hear. He was like a wolf. But there it was again. An irregular creaking and scraping sound, like metal on metal. She glanced at Tobias and Arnold. They had heard it too. She glanced at Tobias. He was white as a sheet. He whispered something to Arnold, and he nodded. Maka was getting annoyed now. "What? What is it?" Tobias chuckled softly, and then regained his composure. "Maka, Soul, is there anything you need for travel? They shook their heads, and he seemed reassured. Good. We need to leave as soon as possible. Before it gets to the door.." he was cut short when something started knocking on the front door.


End file.
